I'm a Libertarian living in Humboldt County, CA. I've lived here in Eureka since 1973 and joined the Libertarian Party in 1992. This blog will mostly focus on local political issues, but I may stray into state and national issues as well, when I can't help myself. Please post your comments by clicking on the "comments" link at the bottom of each post. Although I do moderate comments, you need not be a registered user to post them.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Stuck On Dial Up

Boy, what a pain. Got up this morning and couldn't go online with DSL. Tried everything I could think of but no luck. That little green light in the number 4 slot of the DSL modem isn't on so it just doesn't seem to be working.

So, in desparation, I pulled my extra phone line out of my laptop bag and connected the dial up modem to the phone jack. That got me connected. That's one good thing about AT&T internet: If DSL fails you, you always have the option of using standard dial up, and free dial up numbers are provided throughout the state.

I've been on the computer for almost two and a half hours now and haven't come close to getting the stuff I'd normally have done by this time. I can't believe how slow dial up seems. It seemed faster than this last time I used it. Then again, I have to remember the dial up modem I'm using was given to me- One of those things someone had just laying around. It's never really been up to speed, pardon the pun.

I've had more problems connecting since I went to DSL than I ever did with good old Humboldt Internet dial- up. In fairness to AT&T, outages like this don't happen all that often- maybe once or twice a year.

Anyone else with DSL having problems connecting this morning? I hope it's not just me.

13 Comments:

This is going on four hours and still no DSL. I don't know when this outage started but, even from when I first turned on the computer this morning, this is the longest outage I've suffered through in the time I've had DSL.

Oh, I meant to clarify: When I say I hope it's not just happening to me, it's not that I want everyone else cut off from the internet. I just figure, if it's happening to more than just me, it's more likely systemwide and will be taken care of sooner.

Those of you with AT&T DSL, if you're cut off, be sure and send AT&T DSL and e-mail through their Help web page athttp://www.sbcis.com/index.php

Taking a look at my hit counter stats, I don't see any hits from anywhere in Humboldt but Samoa today, so far. Got three from the Sand Dwellers this morning about 4am. That seems indicative of a area wide failure for AT&T.

What I'd like to know is if this is just affecting AT&T customers? It would seem I'd have gotten at least a few hits from non- AT&T folks, otherwise. After all, my dial up connection seems to work ok.

All the shops have signs up about not accepting credit or gift cards today. Costco was still accepting its own Amex card though, but had a confusing sign at the door saying something like "No cards or checks accepted today." That caused a fair number of people to turn around, not realizing they could use their Costco-branded Amex card. I ran into a friend in the parking lot who wondered how I had bought so much stuff with cash.

I called Suddenlink - they said somehow a cable (fiberoptic?) got severed and they had techs working on it - guess they got it fixed, I was down all day. Even though it is irritating, I have to say THANKS guys for the hard work getting it fixed, we do appreciate it.

I think that if we can design a big horn that blows when a tsunami threatens our shore, AT&T Yahoo should be able to set up a big horn that tells us "Don't try to fix your personal computer, it is our system that has stopped working correctly!"

I'll bet I'm not the only customer who spent most of the day trying to figure out what was wrong with my Internet connection.

That would be a pretty expensive back up, Carol. I suppose it shouldn't be considered all that dependable, but using the AT&T dial up numbers allowed me to take care of a lot of internet stuff. It was real slow, though, and I suppose it could have just as easily have gone down as broadband.

As an aside I see the Eureka Reporter had a story on the outage, but nothing about it in the Ukiah Daily Journal. I would think that, even if Mendocino didn't lose any services, it would still be newsworthy that a structure fire in their county knocked out internet for two counties just north of them.